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THE MASTER 



HAROLD F. BARBER 



THE MASTER 



BY 
HAROLD F. BARBER 



" It matters not ho=o> strait the gate, 
How charged faith punishments the scroti, 
lam the master of my fate; 
lam the captain of my soul." 

— Henley 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, IN THE CITY OF BOSTON, 

AT CHRISTMAS-TIME 

1913 



Copyright, J9J3 
By Harold F. Barber 



JAN 101914 



©CI.A362 



B J 1481 



This is Number of a limited first edition of 100 copies, 

designed, published and signed by the author 




|UCH a dear little wife as he had ! 
Every day since their marriage 
three years before, he had real- 
ized anew his good fortune, al- 
ways with increasing ecstasy* 
She contributed to his comfort, 
to his prosperity, to his every 
dream and hope* 
Then came the child, a cooing, happy girl-baby* 
She grew into a golden-haired ray of sunshine, and 
life was a continuous example of what heaven may 
be, if all our dreams are realized. 

He lacked nothing. His cup was quite full. Al- 
though he was not rich in this world's goods, the 
love in which he lived so enfolded his every thought 
and act, that nothing else seemed to matter much. 
He was a skilled man at the office, doing his work 
well, and joying in the pleasure which good work 
well done brings to him who has a contented mind ; 
but his real life began when he left his desk to take 
his journey homeward to the waiting dear ones. 

Two chubby arms flung about his neck in greet- 
ing marked the opening of his day, which drew 
to its close with the wife's good-bye kiss in the 
morning. 

His youth had been quite uneventful — he came 
fresh to all these wonderful days, so much alike, yet 
so ever new and strange. He did not know that so 
much happiness was in the world for any man, and 



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could scarce believe his blessedness. All that the 
words "Home," "Wife," "Child," could mean, 
they meant to him. He thought little of the 
future, and none of the past; why dwell in the 
valley when the mountain-top was his? 

He often said that such a life was too good to 
last — that Fate, the grim tyrant, would not allow 
any man such bliss tor long* 











HE horror came suddenly — al- 
most without warning his wife 
sickened in a night and was 
taken on the third day* 

He cried out — he was stunned 
— with numb brain he saw ail 
happiness vanish, all sweetness 
turn to bitterness. Where was 
ecstasy, now was only grief. Every action, every 
scene of the home tore him with the knowledge 
that his life had been made desolate forever. 

In agony he clasped the child to him, burying 
his face against the golden locks to hide his tears. 
The child must not realize the horror that had 
come to her young life so early. No ! He must 
hide that as much as possible — he must, in spite 
of all, do what he could to spare the child. He 
must be both father and mother now. 

And so, gradually, he came to live for the little 
one. He found he could crowd down some of his 
despair into a feverish effort to be everything 
to her who carried her mother's eyes and gentle 
ways. 

Now all his thoughts, his plans, his work, were 
for the girl. She should grow up into such a 
maiden as never was before; she should lack 
nothing ; she must be wise and full of health ; 
she must give forth cheer and blessing wherever 
she might be; and she must have always a friend 



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and chum in her father, who loved the mother 
and the babe in one body. 

And so he began to work for, to live in, the 
future — her future* He thought not of the past 
— he dared not — nor of the present, which was 
only a promise of what was to come* He recked 
little of self* but found himself joying once more 
in the unfolding of his child into maidenhood* 

People said, "How happy he is with his little 
girl!" 



HE girl was twelve years old 
when she began to droop, and 
in spite of all the flaming fierce- 
ness of his love, nothing availed* 
$£ * - ~. . 1& \ ^ c lingered for some months* 
jJgftjcXjjjtfgsg and then died* 
^UQSE^S He had gaily faced life as a 
knight of old on his charger; 
the horse that bore him had been cut down, and 
he had fared on afoot* trusting in his sword and 
shield — and now these were wrested away.leaving 
him defenceless before the grim enemy of man's 
happiness. 

There was no single thing left* Nothing. No 
outlook but a desert waste as far as he could see ; 
and his strength, his courage, was gone* The 
universe had no meaning, no aim, no hope* 

When he came home at night to the empty I 
house which cried out with its barrenness, he 
would light his pipe and sit for hours, his aching 
brain protesting against the futility of it all. Then 
he would seize passionately on some particularly | 
sweet memory, and live over again each detail, 
ending with a bitter cry wrung from his soul. 
More and more these hours of retrospect claimed 
him as the dulled brain slowly awoke, and he 
found himself seeking quiet hours wherein he 
might dream his dreams. 

As time wore on the biting, cruel edge of his 




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bitterness grew dolled, and the memories of the 
little girl who had been everything to him, carried 
him back to memories of the dear wife now dead 
so long. And he found that as extreme grief 
waned the sweetness of the past became greater 
and greater. He grew calmer, and instead of the 
rancour that had possessed his soul, he thanked his 
gods that he had known so many blessings. He 
clung to his memories with a drowning man's 
grasp, but with an ever increasing surety and calm 
confidence. 

Twice had fate struck. It had taken his wife, 
then his child ; and now, with a sort of exultation, 
he realized that no fate could by any means what- 
soever take away his memories of sweetness and of 
the joys that had been his. These joys had become 
roof against all hell itself, so long as he should be 
Only the grave could separate him from them. 

He realized that great happinesses are unstable, 
turningquicklyinto great griefs — thatevery height 
we climb means a deeper abyss awaiting us farther 
on — that every shining joy may be turned about 
to show its dark side of sorrow. As these things 
came to him, he smiled a little grimly. His joys 
now were of the mist of memory, which is all 
gray, having no shining form and no darker side 
of sorrow ; but though the shimmer and shine had 
passed away, they were just as wonderfully formed 



And so, little by little, serenity took the place of 
sorrow, and a calm assurance shone from his eyes. 
His thoughts were all of the beauty which he had 
known; and dwelling thus on beauty, he saw 
beauty everywhere about him. The world was 
indeed beautiful, and he lived to make it more so 
for his neighbors, and to help them to love more 
keenly this holy spirit, this comforter, everywhere 
abroad in the world. 

His advice was sought ; his kindly, serene soul 
was beloved ; and whatever befell, he seemed to be 
a rock against which the waves of disappointment 
might beat in vain. 

He lived in the past, and had learned to over- 
come even Death itself — for he had his memories 
until such time as Death should come, when he 
would bid him welcome with a smile, for life was 
complete. 




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This edition was designed fay the author, and was printed on Normandy Vellum, 

with covers of Italian hand-made paper, at the press of 

Smith & Porter, Boston 



